The economic aspect of the agrarian question of the independent Republic of Poland

Abstract

The agrarian question, brought to the forum of social discourse at the end of the 19th century, is a very complex theoretical problem with extensive practical effects, caused by the different ways of its solving. This question refers to the transformation of the socio-economic agrarian formation into the industrial one. In the former, traditional peasant farms dominated, while in the latter, farmers’ farm, agricultural enterprises and agro-industrial corporations were dominant. Capital driven by the imperative of continuous accumulation (profit maximizing) played a key role in this transformation. The singularity of agrarian issues consisted in peasants involving to this transformation towards capital interest. With independece regained, Poland inherited the pressing agrarian question, as was manifested by the domination of small and low-productive peasant farms which had huge unused labour resources and struggled with inadequate subsistence incomes. Alongside peasant farms there existed squirearchy farms – also low-productive – and few agricultural companies. In the interwar period, the agrarian question was not solved. During the period of the Polish People’s Republic, an attempt at collectivization to solve the agrarian question failed, while the overall socio-economic development enabled the reduction of labour force surplus in agriculture and agriculture productivity increase. The political transformation in the 1990s lifted the doctrinal and institutional barriers of family farming transformation, while new economic conditions were created only after Poland’s accession to the European Union together with the Polish agriculture being involved in the common agricultural policy mechanisms.